Political Party Analysis: Socialist Party (Bulgaria)

The next party we will cover in our analysis of Bulgarian politics is the Bulgarian Socialist party.

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Overview and History

The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), is the oldest active political party in Bulgaria, being founded back in 1894 as the Communist Party before changing its name in 1990. With that name change came newer policies, as they abandoned their former Marxist-Leninist far-left ideology and adopted more left-wing socialist policies instead. Since the foundation of free elections in 1990, they have finished in 1st or 2nd in every parliamentary election, making them one of the strongest parties in Bulgaria and the main opposition to the center-right GERB party. Their favorite coalition partner is the Turkish-minority Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS).

Korneliya Ninova’s Bulgarian Socialist Party made large gains in 2017 but failed to secure a plurality. (Photo from Sputnik)

Recent Electoral History and Political Power

National Party Strength Ranking: 2nd

BSP is the 2nd strongest party in Bulgaria following this year’s election. Details on their control in specific areas are below.

Prime Minister:Since 1990, BSP has led 4 governments, the most recent of which was following the 2013 election.

Parliament: In the 2014 parliamentary elections the party received 15.4% of the vote, 39 out of the 240 seats in parliament, and finished in 2nd place.

President: BSP did not officially have a candidate in the 2016 presidential election, but they endorsed Rumen Radev, an independent. Radev received 25.44% of the vote in the first round of the election and 59.37% in the second round, winning the office.

European Parliament: BSP is a member of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats parliamentary group in the European Parliament. In the 2014 European Parliament elections, they finished in 2nd place with 18.93% of the vote, earning 4 out of the 17 seats allocated to Bulgaria.

Projections future Elections

N/A – the next Bulgarian election will be in 2021 if a new one is not called before that.

Economic and Fiscal Policy

From their name, the Bulgarian Socialist Party supports a socialist economic policy (though more moderate factions within the party are social-democrats instead). Their policy is based around more government involvement in the economy, as they believe GERB’s more market based policies have failed. They also call for increasing pensions and higher salaries for public sector workers.

Liberty Rating*: D-

Social and Foreign Policy

BSP’s social policy tends to focus on security. They have campaigned on increasing border security, especially with Turkey, as conflicts have emerged over the large amounts of refugees and immigrants coming from and through Turkey. In terms of foreign policy, they are concerned about foreign involvement from the west, Turkey, and Russia in Bulgaria’s politics and wants to bring an end to that; despite this, they do want to end the EU’s sanctions on Russia, and they support working more with Russia as well.

Liberty Rating*: D+

(There is little other information in English about BSP’s policies. We will attempt to update this further as we know more, and please contact us if you have information.)

Political Spectrum**

Based on our liberty ratings for BSP’s economic and social policy, they are a left-wing socialist party is the authoritarian sector. Their economic policies are socialist and interventionist, placing them solidly in the traditionally left area on economics, but their social policies focus on security and favoritism towards Russia, pushing them into the authoritarian sector instead.

Read our analysis of other Bulgarian Political Parties:

*Disclaimer: The policy positions in this article have been evaluated using Wikipedia, Sofia Globe’s article on the party’s platform, and various articles concerning Bulgarian politics. We attempt to rate the parties based on all information that is available, but due to language barriers, lack of information, or simple mistake we may have missed something. If you feel our liberty ratings or general evaluations are incorrect, please let us know on our contact page or nicely in the comments and we’ll try to fix it. If you have questions on how these ratings are created, feel free to ask as well.

**This spectrum shows economic liberty on the right axis and social liberty on the left axis, so 100 on both axis is “pure” libertarianism and 0 on both axis is pure authoritarianism for example.